


Inevitable

by camichats



Category: Marvel
Genre: Avengers Family, Established Relationship, M/M, Old Age, Super Soldier Serum, Time Skips, Unhappy Ending
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2018-12-11
Updated: 2018-12-11
Packaged: 2019-09-16 02:08:59
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,549
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/16944957
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/camichats/pseuds/camichats
Summary: Tony's always been older than him, and the serum has always made Bucky age slower, but he didn't put two and two together until it was staring him in the face.





	Inevitable

At the start of their relationship, Bucky had known and been fully aware that Tony was older than him. Mostly because Tony told him so. Repeatedly and like he thought it was going to change Bucky's mind about dating him. 

Time seemed to fly between them in the best way possible. The first year had gone slowly, trying to figure out how they balanced their relationship with being teammates and then just figuring out how to do a relationship period. By the time they had their anniversary though, things were pretty solid. Bucky barely noticed when they had their second one because it felt like the first had happened only a month ago. 

He was around for the wrinkles that appeared on Tony's face, so he barely noticed that they appeared, much less pinpointing exactly when. Tony had a few grey hairs around his temples when they got married, which Bucky only thought about because he had nearly dyed them for the pictures. It was only Bucky's pleading that stopped him from doing so, and even still Tony seemed the slightest bit uncomfortable with this sign of aging being in their wedding pictures. 

But still, it didn't hit Bucky. 

He was very aware of the year between their wedding and their first anniversary as a married couple, but after that it went back to a whirl of happiness and waking up next to the most gorgeous man in the entire world. 

He noticed when they started slowing down on the sex because Tony'd had to sit him down and actually say, "I'm getting too old to keep up with you in bed," when his hints for that fell flat. 

Bucky had blinked and said, "Oh," before kissing him and saying that he'd stop. And then, of course, Tony had had to correct him and say that he was okay with some sex, he just couldn't do it every morning and night and sometimes in the afternoon like they'd been doing when they first got together. 

After that, Bucky had barely noticed when Tony stopped getting it up altogether because they'd already spent a couple years with Tony mostly focusing on Bucky in bed and not himself. 

Bucky still looked like he was thirty when the sex stopped. Tony quit Iron Man soon after, but not by choice. The doctor had sat him down and said that he'd already destroyed his knees, and he was going to be in excruciating pain if he tried to continue. The doctor had also laid out the various issues Tony was living with, and said that short of a de-aging miracle, Tony would die in the next year if he kept it up. Naturally, Tony tried to argue, but Bucky had squeezed his hand and he quieted, giving in with a small nod. 

Bucky ended up retiring pretty quickly after that. He didn't love it the way he knew the other heroes did, and honestly he didn't see the point in it when he and Tony were talking about moving to his house upstate. They were still involved in the Avengers, couldn't not be with the Avenger's Tower and Tony's contributions, but it was removed since they were no longer living in the same space as the others. 

Tony had to start taking a bouquet of pills every day. Some were large, some were small, some had to be taken with food, some before bed, and all of them looked depressingly like Tony was sick. Bucky would look at him though, see that he was just as lively as he had been the day before, and write it off. Tony had a heart condition, even now that the arc reactor was gone, and at least three of those little pills were for pain, and he'd been taking those for years. It wasn't anything to worry about. 

Tony had been complaining-- in that Tony way that meant he was only a little upset and complained more for the idea of it than because he actually minded-- about his hair going grey for so long that Bucky hardly noticed when his entire head was covered in white. It didn't fall out because thinning hair wasn't in his genes. 

He had to start wearing glasses 24/7, and then he had to get bifocals, but still, it didn't occur to Bucky. 

It was hard for him to get out of bed during winter, but the cold hadn't been kind to either of them, so he didn't think about it. Tony had always had sporadic meals, so it wasn't unusual to see him stirring his soup instead of eating it. 

There were so many things that Bucky didn't think about until he found Tony collapsed on the living room floor, and even then it took him rushing to Tony's side and feeling the fragility of his bones under Bucky's hand and how light he was for it to click into place. 

He called Steve when they got to the hospital, and it took him hardly any time to get there. It took a bit longer for the old crew to show up, but they did. Nat's hair was streaked with silver, and Clint had taken to wearing a hat so he didn't have to mess with his balding head. Jan looked regal with her own grey hair, and she had a cane to assist her as she walked. Coulson was in a wheelchair, but he'd been older than Tony when they first met. Steve was the only one that looked how Bucky was expecting: like he hadn't hardly aged. Like Bucky, it looked like he was more mid-thirties than anything else. 

"Mister Stark?" the doctor asked, and Bucky got to his feet. 

"Yes?" 

"Perhaps we should talk in private?" he suggested, noting that they weren't alone. He recognized the original Avengers of course, but that didn't change the fact that the only one privy to Tony's condition was his husband. 

"Uh," Bucky glanced around him. It was only them in the room. "You can tell me here." 

Steve grabbed his hand and squeezed it. Bucky wanted to tell him to calm down, that the doctor was going to tell him that Tony needed a few weeks in the hospital before he could go home and that would be the end of it, because that's always what the doctors said these days. 

The doctor leveled him with a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry Mister Stark-" Bucky clenched down on Steve's hand with a vice-like grip "-but he doesn't have long left. Three months at most." 

Bucky barely heard him, his ears ringing. "What? But- that's not. Tony's fine. He's- he's always fine, what do you mean--" 

Steve got to his feet and put himself between Bucky and the doctor, which the other man looked grateful for. "Thank you doctor," Steve said, and the man left after giving a slight incline of his head. "There's nothing he can do," Steve whispered when Bucky made an aborted move to go after him. "Tony's just... gotten older. You always knew this was going to happen." 

Bucky shook his head, trying to clamp down on the tears spilling from his eyes. "No. No." 

"Let's just go see him," Steve suggested softly. Bucky didn't respond. Steve gently pulled him into the room, and it felt like he wasn't putting one foot in front of the other when he crawled onto Tony's bed with him. 

Tony smiled and pet a hand through his hair. When did his hand start to feel so weak? He'd always had such strong hands that, like so many other things, Bucky hadn't even noticed when it changed. His trademark facial hair was long gone, a casualty of when his hands started shake. Bucky had sort of noticed that, but Tony had been so upset that he couldn't do upgrades to DUM-E that it had gotten looked over. Bucky noticed it now. "Hey sweetheart," he said quietly before turning to Steve and saying in a normal tone, "hey Cap. How're things at the Tower these days?" 

Steve gave him a smile that tried its best to be happy but ended up being sad. "Like you don't watch the news waiting for something to show up." 

"I would never." 

Bucky sobbed against his shirt, and Tony struggled to get his other hand around him, careful as he had to be with the IV. 

"It's okay sweetheart," he whispered. 

Bucky wanted to tell him that no, it wasn't fine, that for all Tony had told Bucky this would happen when they first got together, he hadn't seen it coming and now he only had a couple months before he was supposed to learn to be without him, and how was he supposed to do that? 

He couldn't, he just- he couldn't. 

But every time Bucky visited him and cried and asked him not to leave, Tony just pet his hair or kissed him and told him, "You'll be okay sweetheart." 

It was the last thing Tony ever said to him. 

He had to go home and tell DUM-E that it was just them now. The bot couldn't cry, but he let out a long despondent beep, and Bucky felt his heart break again. "It's okay," he said, patting DUM-E's strut tremulously. "We'll be okay."

**Author's Note:**

> I'm on tumblr [@cami-chats](http://cami-chats.tumblr.com)
> 
> Also if you cried, you are obligated to tell me in the comments because I did NOT cry while writing this to be the only one.


End file.
